The tax code has become more and more detailed. The time it takes to comply with the tax code imposes a real cost on the economy. Tackling the cost of tax complexity to our nation’s economy should be a priority for lawmakers. In 1955, the Internal Revenue Code stood at 409,000 words. Since then, it has grown to a total of 2.4 million words. Americans will spend more than 8.9 billion hours complying with IRS tax filing requirements in 2016. This is equal to nearly 4.3 million full-time workers doing nothing but tax return paperwork. The IRS recently revised its estimate of the hours required to comply with business tax returns from 363 million to 2.8 billion.
Cost of complying with U.S. business income taxes accounts for 36 percent of the total cost of the entire tax code, at $147 billion. Complying with the individual income tax costs another $99 billion annually. Many businesses choose to become S corporations in order to avoid the second layer of tax that is applied to traditional C corporations. This, too, apparently comes with a high compliance cost.
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https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/TaxFoundation_FF512.pdf